For Doc (confirms what nre and I said earlier):
http://fairmark.com/execcomp/nqocash.htm
Our brokerage uses the same number for sale and exercise price; as nre said, some firms use stock closing price or average daily price as the exercise price.
Unless it was some sort of a weird stock option buyback program, this is most likely what happened.
Bloomberg Businessweek has āThe Investing Issueā, special double issue March 23 - Apr 5. Charts, data, etc. 2 pp on secrets your pension fund canāt tell you, 2 pp on rethinking the shift-to-bonds strategy, 2 pp on long term care insurance including Why Genworth has been having trouble, MetLife and Prudential Financial have stopped writing policies. Long article on Tim Sykes.One page on how to break up with expensive financial advisor.
Heard on NPR this morning about some German bonds that are actually at a negative rate and still in demand. What about Chicago - will it go bankrupt?
In the shirt-to-bonds strategy article, a NJ couple in early 50ās were told by their investment advisor to either allocate more savings to stocks than fixed income, or risk having to scrimp in old age (they had 80% of their $1 million retirement stash in government bonds yielding 1 - 2 %, and the rest in stocks). He said they need to double their nest egg if they want to retire at 67 and have the $80,000 draw each year from their investments. Want to avert them worrying in their 80ās about when they might start running out of money.
Has anyone logged into Financial Guard to find out how much your investments have cost in fees? We know what our fees are, so havenāt had a need to check into this.
Nice discussion about one Social Security consideration here, partly addressing the notion of investment earnings on SS collected earlier:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-determine-the-return-on-delaying-social-security-2015-03-20
"I have never heard of non-qualified stock options that can be directly sold to a third-party. All the option agreements Iāve ever had explicitly prohibited this, in fact.
Are you positive that when you sold the options you werenāt actually doing a same-day exercise and sale?"
I just checked with the brokerage house holding the options. The options were sold, they were not exercised and the stock purchased and sold, exactly as I said before.
@DocTā, thatās pretty interesting. Could anybody buy these options?
Did you pay anything for these, or did the company give them to you for free?
Wow. I am scratching my head, too. Were they stock grants (RSU) or some other stock āgiftsā? I can not imagine how one can sell incentive or non-qualified options without exercising them. That is interesting, indeed. When I go to NQ stock options sale, my broker gives me a choice of same day cashless exercise/sale, purchase with cash and hold, or purchase with shares and hold.
If these were RSU, then a whole different ball of rules applies.
I didnāt pay anything for them. They were given in lieu of a raise that year. I should point out that the company I work for is not a US based company.
In that case I would logically expect that the value when they were given to you would count as regular income and be reported on your w2. And the difference between the value when you received them and what you sold them for would be short or long-term capital gain or loss, reported to you on the 1099-B and reported by you on schedule D.
But logic doesnāt always apply, and who knows if there is any kind of special tax treatment of theseā¦ thereās a reason the tax code is a full employment act for accountants and tax people. 
Good luck!
It was reported on the w2 and taxed at 39%. The issue is how to handle the 1099 that just shows proceeds and cost basis
For those who are comparing state taxation policies and rates while planning for retirement, this website seems to be fairly thorough and lists various tax items for consideration:
Our Sunday paper had a Kiplinger article by Carolyn Bigda that was about funding IRAs, including jump-start juniorās retirement. On juniorās account, they were assuming an annualized return of 7 percent over the next 50 yearsā¦
Being in AL, I couldnāt open my DDās TD Ameritrade Roth IRA account until this week (she turned 19 on March 20th).This past year was her first year of earned income, so timing worked out fine.
Another Sunday paper article, also Kiplinger, by Sandra Block about SS benefits from ex-spouse or from spousal benefits; survivor benefits if your ex dies (if you were married for 10 or more years). I know when I turn 62, we will look at how to manage SS options.
@SOSConcern, you probably wonāt be filing early, but you should look into it probably 6-12 months ahead of time.
ā¦ as the saying goes, from their lips to Godās ears. It would be nice, but Iām not holding my breath.
We meet with our financial guy Don twice a year, and you can bet we will be talking about it early in 2018 
Going to look at our 401(k) and see if it is still making me smile.
Could not log on to CC to post for a while! Doc, this is quite possible a question for seasoned tax professionals (and I do not mean temp help from H&R Block etc.). If these were foreign options, you might have some extra reporting to doā¦
wowā¦over 5800 posts!
See what you started, Mom2?.
Hereās a question ā when you are looking at your 401k balance, how do you estimate what the growth will be conservatively? I hear 30 yr olds say, Iām at x in my 401k now ā so if I didnāt put in anything more (which they obviously will) ā I will be at x*(1+r)^35 at age 65. What is r in that case?
Iāve heard everything from 10% (which sounds aggressive to me ā even averaged across 35 yrs) to 3% for folks who are trying to be super conservative and counting on a lot of down years or trying to account for the fact that even though money will grow so will inflation so they want to use a conservative rate to account for purchasing power.
Is there a rule of thumb on this that anyone has heard?
6%
@aj725, that was a topic in the low #5000s. I posted a chart I like in #5015. You can see other predictions at http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Historical_and_expected_returns#cite_note-3
Iām very conservative and usually use 2% for real growth, and a safe withdrawal rate (SWR) of 3-4%.
I teach my kids, and they see it in practice, that the error of saving too much is less painful than saving too little.
So true!